Secrets (Never to be Told)

Chapter Six

Lucy woke up cuffed to a hard table as she felt something scratching her. Why did it hurt so much and what the hell was that buzzing sound? She looked down her body and saw Caleb tattooing something on her body. DOD6919.

"Oh, you're awake." Caleb looked up at her and smiled. "You know what this is?" he pointed to the tattoo and from his reaction she could tell he knew that she knew. "My day of death."

Hailee woke up alone. There was no smell of breakfast and she didn't hear anything in the apartment either. When she looked at the clock in her room, she noticed that it was already 7:30am. Usually, they would've been out already. Wandering through the kitchen, she didn't see anything unusual, until she noticed the empty spot where her mother's keys would usually be. Reaching for the phone Lucy had given her for emergencies, Hailee called her mother, but it went immediately to the mailbox. Instead of trying again, she decided to call 911.

"911, what's your emergency?" The voice of a woman roamed through the speaker. "My mother is gone." "Hello sweetheart, what's your name?" "Hailee Chen. My mother works for the police and she didn't come home last night."

About at the same time, Tim was waiting at the station to wait for Lucy. He couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong. "Harper, did you see Chen in the locker rooms?" The detective shook her head. "She's probably just running late." Nolan added as he walked into the briefing room. But Tim knew that wouldn't be the case. Lucy wasn't a person to run late. Something was wrong.

"We've got a problem." Grey walked into the briefing room, a serious expression on his face. "We just got a 911-call in. A young girl, ten years old, called to report her mother missing." Tim listened to his watch commander, the weird feeling only increasing. "The girl's name is Hailee Chen, and she said her mother was working for the police." Tim felt nauseous, he could think of what would come next. "And that is supposedly Officer Lucy Chen." Bradford interrupted Grey and the older man nodded.

"We have to believe that, yes. I've had Jackson pick up the girl and have him bring her here. She shouldn't be alone and we have to ask her a few questions. Where she was and when she'd last seen her mother."

Tim stayed quiet. First, he finds out Lucy has a daughter and now that daughter is reporting her missing. She'd never talked about her in the shop, but it would explain why they worked the eight-hour shift instead of the regular twelve-hour one.

"I think I know where Lucy was last night and what she was doing." Tim started, guilt growing as he talked. "I pushed her yesterday to go out and take her mind off things after she told me she had a lot of stress because of the new apartment. This guy, Caleb Wright, invited her for a drink, claiming they'd met each other at a bar the night before." Nolan nodded. "Yeah, I think I know that guy. Jackson, Nick and I were with her at the bar."

Grey had Lucy's phone located and Caleb's social media accounts checked out, but nothing came back positive. There were no accounts under the name 'Caleb Wright' and her last known location was the bar.

Tim didn't know what to do. It was his fault that Lucy is now missing. He shouldn't have pushed her to go out with that guy. He got out his phone and called Angela. He knew that she called in sick that day, but they needed her for this. He needed her.

"Angela." Lopez frowned as she noticed the tone in his voice. It couldn't mean anything good. "Lucy's missing. We need all hands on deck," he paused for a second, "I need you." "On my way."

Tim was already waiting for Angela when she came rushing into the station. But as he looked at Lopez and Wesley, he noticed Jackson with a girl exiting the interrogation room. She looked so much like Lucy. "What are you looking at?" Angela followed his gaze. "Who's that?" "Lucy's daughter." Bradford looked at his best friend as a mixture of shock and confusion appeared in her expression. "I didn't know she had a daughter." Neither did he, or anyone at the station for that matter.

Lopez had her boyfriend sit down in the briefing room so that she could have an eye on him while talking to Tim. "Stop blaming yourself." Her voice cut off his thoughts. "I didn't say anything." "You don't have to. I've known you for a decade and yet I've never seen you like this." Tim sighed as he leaned against the wall. "She wanted to go home. Rest, get some sleep. I pushed her to go out with that guy. If I'd had done- ""You couldn't have known" Angela interrupted him. "So, stop blaming yourself and do what you do best: police work. Lucy's counting on you."

"The bartender recognized Caleb and Lucy to be at the bar last night. Security cameras have picked up this." Grey played the security camera footage which showed two people walking in the parking lot. One of them seemed to stagger while the other supported them. "He drugged her drink." Tim said under his breath and felt a sting in his heart. "Soon after," Grey continued, "this car drove by, and they were gone. Lucy's car was found in an alley near the bar, where she must have parked it."

He closed the video and sighed. "This leads us to think that Caleb is Rosalind's protégé and that he took Officer Chen."

Lucy looked at the duct tape around her hands after Caleb had uncuffed her from the chair. "Let's go." He grabbed her arm and yanked her, but she was able to break free of her restrains and punched Caleb in the face. As he was holding his face in pain, she ran out the door. Lucy was in the middle of nowhere and she had no clue where to run off to. As she wanted to start running further away, Caleb had already caught her and pulled her off into nowhere.

"Where's my mother?" Hailee was sitting on the couch in the break room, eyes red and puffy from crying as she finished the croissant Jackson had bought her for breakfast. It broke Harper's heart to see a girl – the same age as her own daughter – suffer. "I'm sorry honey. We're doing our best to find her."

Tim and Lopez entered the breakroom and squatted down to be on the same level as Hailee. While Lopez talked to the girl, Tim got caught in her clear blue eyes and the facial features that reminded him so much of Lucy.

Caleb was pushing her through the sand to an empty oil barrel in the ground. She was limping and biting her lip to not cry out in pain at every step. Caleb was holding a knife in the other hand, occasionally poking her to make her walk faster. "God, when I get that off of you it's going right in your head." She gritted her teeth and he just laughed. "You're still thinking you can escape. You weren't conscious for your birth, but you will feel every second of your death." Caleb said and pushed her a bit further, cutting up the zip-ties keeping her wrists together. "Get into the barrel." He pulled out a gun, pointing it on Lucy and he watched as Lucy glared at him while climbing inside. What he didn't notice was the ring she had dropped just before.

Caleb closed the barrel and shoveled some dirt over it, looking back once before leaving the site and thus leaving Lucy alone and trapped in the ground.

In the meantime, Wesley and Lopez had finally figured out the house in which Lucy was held and sent all units there. Harper and Nolan were the first to arrive, kicking the door open and finding Armstrong and Caleb inside. Without a thought, Harper shot Caleb, but instead of being glad, Nick screamed out. "No, he was the only one who knew where she is!" Nolan and Harper tried to revive him, but he bled out to them in no time.

"We have to look for her." The three of them ran out of the house, meeting the rest of the team outside. Wesley had stayed with Hailee.

"Caleb is dead. Lucy is buried here somewhere." Harper explained and looked at the live feed that Angela was holding up. "I can't tell if she's breathing..." Tim mumbled and clenched his hand into a fist.

They split up and searched the area. They only had so much time until Lucy would run out of air.

Suddenly, something shiny caught his eye and he ran towards it. It was a ring – Tim would recognize that ring anywhere, it was Lucy's. "I got her!" He yelled and started kicking up dirt until Nolan and West helped him with shovels, revealing the barrel Lucy was stuffed into.

With joint forces they opened the metal lid and Tim pulled her out. She wasn't conscious. They laid her on the ground, and he checked for pulse and breath – negative.

"She is not breathing, no pulse." Tim started CPR and almost started crying when nothing happened. "Come on, Lucy." He mumbled, keeping the pressure steady and giving her air through her mouth. Suddenly, she coughed and Tim's first instinct was to hold her close to him, show her she's safe. He kept stroking her hair as she cried into his uniform, and he kept saying soothing phrases to calm her down. "Lucy, you're safe. I've got you." He held her closer until the ambulance arrived and they wheeled her off.